“Cookies?” I asked, my eyes lighting up. “Mom’s recipe?”
“Of course. Are you going to go see her?” Kimber asked, as if she didn’t care. But I saw her glance nervously in my direction.
It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with my mother. It was more like…we were the exact same person. So, when we were together, our stubborn heads butted, and everyone ran for the hills. But there weren’t hills in Lubbock.
“Yeah…probably.”
“Did you even let her know you were coming into town?”
Kimber picked Lilyanne up and dropped her down into a seat by the sprinkles. The timer dinged for the cookies, and Kimber pulled them out of the oven. Fluffy golden brown Christmas cookies, just the way we liked them.
I shot Kimber a sheepish look. “No, but…”
“Gah, Emery! She’s going to kill me if you stay here without telling her you’re in town. I do not want to deal with that while I’m pregnant.”
“I’m going to tell her!” I said, reaching for a cookie.
Kimber slapped my fingers with the spatula. “Those are too hot. Wait for them to cool.”
“You don’t want a boo-boo,” Lilyanne said.
I sucked my finger into my mouth and made a face at my sister. “Fine.”
Kimber dropped the subject, and we spent the rest of the afternoon making cookies. Lilyanne and I got to cut out the shapes with Kimber’s cookie cutters, and then she placed them on the tray and into the oven. Once they cooled, we iced and added Christmas sprinkles on top of them.
By the time Noah was home, earlier than usual for him, we were covered in flour with sugary-sweet hangovers. It was a welcome relief from the drama I’d endured with Mitch. It was a known fact that Kimber’s cookies cured heartaches.
I pulled Noah in for a big hug. “Missed you.”
“You, too, Em. I heard you were having some trouble.”
My nose wrinkled. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me stay while I figure things out.”
“You’re always welcome here. It’ll be good to have you around for Kimber, too. She’s home a lot with this one, and I know she’s ready to get back to work.”
My sister owned a kick-ass bakery right off of campus called Death by Chocolate that made the best cookies, cupcakes, and doughnuts in town. But, with the new baby on the way, she’d taken a step back and turned more to management, so she could work from home. But her true passion was baking, and I knew she’d love to get back into the thick of things as soon as she could.
“Thanks Noah.”
When it was Lilyanne’s bedtime, I finally left their house and went to meet my best friend out for a drink.
When I pulled up to Flips, I was shaking from the bitter December cold that had sprung up out of nowhere. I rummaged through my backseat, extracted a black leather jacket, and then dashed across the parking lot.
I handed the bouncer my ID and then pushed through the hipster crowd to the back of the bar. As expected, I found Heidi leaning over a pool table and making eyes at a guy who thought he was going to make some easy money on a game against a chick. His friends stood around with smirks on their face, as they drank Bud Light. Lubbock was big enough that there were still enough idiots for Heidi to hustle, but the regulars steered clear.
“Em!” Heidi called, jumping up and down at my appearance.
“Hey, babe,” I said with a wink.
“Guys, I’m going to have to finish this game early. My bestie is here.”
The guy’s brow furrowed in confusion. She leaned down and knocked the rest of her balls into the holes, hardly paying any attention. He and his friends’ jaws dropped, and I just laughed. I’d seen it happen one too many times.
Heidi’s dad had owned a pool hall when she was a kid, and her skills were legit. I was pretty sure pool was the start of her love affair with geometry. She’d gotten into civil engineering at Tech, and she now worked at Wright Construction, the largest construction company in the nation. I thought it was a waste of her talent, but she liked to be the only female in a male-dominated industry.
“You hustled us!” the guy yelled.
She fluttered her long eyelashes at him and grinned. “Pay up!”
He tossed a couple of twenties on the pool table and stormed away like a sore loser. Heidi counted them out and then stuffed them into the back pocket of her destroyed jeans.
“Emery, baby,” Heidi said, flinging her arms around my neck. “I have missed your face.”
“Missed you, too. You buying?”
She laughed, removed one of the guy’s twenties from her pocket, and threw it on the table. “Peter, shots for me and Emery!”
Peter nodded his head at me. “Hey, prom queen.”
“That was Kimber. Not me!”